SpaceX launches giant Starship rocket, but aborts attempt to catch booster with mechanical arms

By MARCIA DUNN

SpaceX on Tuesday launched another Starship rocket, but passed up catching the booster with giant mechanical arms.

Unlike last month’s success, the booster was directed to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The catch was called off just four minutes into the test flight from Texas for unspecified reasons, and the booster hit the water three minutes later.

Not all of the criteria for a booster catch was met and so the flight director did not command the booster to return to the launch site, said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot. He did not specifying what went wrong.

At the same time, the empty spacecraft launched from Texas atop Starship soared across the Gulf of Mexico on a near loop around the world similar to October’s test flight. Skimming space, the shiny retro-looking craft targeted the Indian Ocean for a controlled but destructive end to the hourlong demo.

It was the latest test for the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket that SpaceX and NASA hope to use to get astronauts back on the moon and eventually Mars.

SpaceX kept the same flight path as last time, but changed some steps along the way as well as the time of day. Starship blasted off in late afternoon instead of early morning to ensure daylight halfway around the world for observing the spacecraft’s descent.